The invention relates to the field of communications, and more particularly to the delivery of audio and other media broadcasts combined with high-accuracy, synchronous textual streams reflecting the dialogue in that media.
The robust growth in demand for both media content and delivery channels has increased the need for novel types of information, news, financial and other services. The Internet and other network technologies have enabled a variety of multipoint media streams, such as news Websites containing streamable video clips, audio clips and other media combinations. One frequent type of news source is a collective meeting or proceeding, in which one or a few speakers discuss information of interest to a wide audience. Those types of settings include sessions of Congress, presidential and other news conferences, corporate analysts"" meetings, media conferences and other group events.
In the case of sessions of Congress and other governmental bodies, the timely delivery of the information content is particularly valuable. Many interested parties could benefit from prompt knowledge of pending provisions in legislation, rulings in court cases and other deliberations. For instance, individuals or organizations that would be affected by the enactment of pending legislation may want to furnish input to their representatives. Or constituents may want to take other actions to contribute or adjust to new statutory, regulatory or other programs.
The federal government deploys a host of communications facilities situated at a variety of sources, often issuing permits for access to those resources. For instance, the U.S. Congress permits press access to its chambers and hearing rooms, from which live video and audio feeds are generated for delivery to commercial networks, news and other organizations.
However, in the instance of legislative reporting, there is a particular demand for written records of the legislature""s activities. Public and private organizations exist which take down and transcribe the activities of both chambers. Those Congressional transcripts are typically made available in hard copy or electronic format within about 48 hours from the time of the legislative sessions, for a subscription fee. This is in contrast to audio or visual feeds for network TV or other delivery, which are often contemporaneous with the debates and other activities. The media, the public, interest groups as well as the government bodies themselves would benefit from more timely and robust delivery of both live media and concurrent textual streams of the dialogue.
The invention relates to a system and method for the integrated delivery of media and synchronized transcription, in which a dedicated network collects, processes and delivers unified audio, video and textual content on a live basis to subscribers. In one regard, the invention may incorporate front-end audio or video servers which sense and collect the audible or video activities of a legislature, press conference, town meeting or other event.
The raw, digitized media feeds from the event are transmitted to a centralized distribution server, which in turn delivers the digitized stream of the event to a remote transcription facility, where automated and human transcription stages decode the dialogue taking place. After speech recognition and editing take place, the textual content is synchronized with the original audio, video or other media and delivered to subscribers, for instance via a Web site interface. Subscribers may configure the delivery modes according to their preference, for instance to silently parse the textual steam for key words, triggering full-screen, audible, wireless or other delivery of the audio or video content when a topic of interest is discussed.
The subscribers may alternatively choose to view and hear the media and textual output continuously, and may access archives for the purpose of reproducing text for research or editorial activities.